


all the good love

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 18:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Valentine's Day, 2018.





	all the good love

Phil's eyes are tired and he groans when Dan shakes him out of bed. 

"I don't appreciate this role reversal," Dan says. "I'm supposed to be lazy, you're supposed to motivate me." 

Phil makes a rude hand gesture. 

Dan reaches out and grabs the finger and squeezes it. Phil whines and tries to tug it away, mumbling, "'leggo!" against his drool-soggy pillow. 

"Nope. Come on. Up. Breakfast. Meeting. A lunch so big we'll have to roll home. The day waits for no man." 

One eye pops open. "I hate you." 

"I know." Dan lets go of Phil's finger and ruffles his hair. "Now get up." 

*

Phil says he's only tired because he had too many pancakes yesterday, because that's always how Phil does this: when he's exhausted, when he's run down, he tries to paint the brightest picture of it. 

Deflection is what it really is. They'd almost fought over it the first time Dan came home from a therapist appointment telling Phil that his therapist thinks Phil is the best deflector she's ever heard of. 

(Somehow until that moment it hadn't occurred to Phil that Dan would be talking about him in therapy. He remembers seeing the cold panic over Phil's face, balking at even a secondhand invasion of his tucked away self, the one the world doesn't get to see.)

So maybe Phil is still coasting on a month's worth of sugar consumed in three hours, but maybe it's also the fact that things they need to come together for tour aren't coming together as quickly as they should, or that they're butting heads with the stage designer. Maybe it's youtube, and the stress of them (Phil, mostly Phil) trying to find a game plan to navigate an ever-changing landscape that seems bent on punishing them fiscally for doing nothing different than they've ever done before. Maybe it's the fact that he can't sleep for the anxiety dreams and Dan hears him get up at least three times a night, footsteps disappearing out and up the stairs. 

Dan wondered for a while, the last time they did this, why Phil was suddenly such a different person with a project plopped in front of them. But he's come to realize, with an awareness that feels like growing up, how Phil was probably always like this and Dan just had too many issues of his own to notice. It makes him hurt a little for how fucked up he was and how fucked up Phil probably was too, how alone Phil probably felt back before Dan knew what words like _deflection_ meant. 

*

Lunch is a luscious affair, tea and too many cakes and laughter and a blissful departure from the talk of business that dominates so much of their time together. 

Instead they hear about holidays and beaches and marvel over their souvenir trinkets and laugh, more laughter, heavy with a sense of family. 

*

There's more to be done in the afternoon, despite the impending food comas. Dan works on editing and works on a speech he's got coming up and works on a playlist in between other tasks, while Phil sits across the room with his glasses on and a pen clenched between his teeth. 

Dan's not even sure where the pen came from. Who has pens, these days? He keeps having strange visions of Phil biting down too hard and ink bursting all over him and smearing on the sofa, making Dan's fingers twitch to take it away from Phil. But he won't just yet, because Phil's off in some other place in his mind sorting through emails and spreadsheets and purchase requests and marketing materials. Dan's afraid if he reminds Phil that he's still in the room, that Phil will start hounding him for opinions and approvals and Dan's not in the place where he wants to try to care about the minutia. 

He grew up hearing that he just needed to apply himself, grew up thinking it was a fatal flaw that he just couldn't figure out exactly what that meant or how to do it. 

One of the beauties of adulthood and partnership is that he's learned that applying oneself is actually a fucking drag when you're the sort of person who can't sit still in a seat and whose mind doesn't focus on only one thing ever. Editing is fine; editing is constant motion and progress, a busy, noisy screen of stuff to match his busy, noisy head. 

So applies himself when he needs to and fields the lesser burdens without complaint. 

* 

At half five he stands and stretches. His stomach still feels precariously full but his legs are aching and he needs a break. 

Or at least, that's what he tells Phil, as he leans upside down over Phil to kiss his forehead and pluck the gnawed on pen from between his teeth. "Do you want to come?" He asks, knowing the answer will be no. Phil is the sort who wants to get things over with all at once, have work time for work and then be done. 

(The opposite of Dan, who dawdles and draws out every projects, takes five breaks an hour and panics at two in the morning when he's tired and nothing is anywhere near done.) 

*

"I need flowers," Dan says. 

He stands in the doorway of a small shop, teeming with floral scents and brightly colored bouquets. 

"Well, love, we've got those." She laughs a polite laugh and gestures around. "Did you have something more specific in mind?" 

"No, I'll just... browse," Dan says, perusing the tiny aisles. He feels too big for the space. "They're for Valentine's Day." 

"I did assume," she says. She looks down at her phone, then quickly back up. "Roses are always a fine standard." 

"He's not standard," Dan says, which sounds ridiculous, but he feels the truth of it intensely. 

His eyes linger on a three-tiered orb display of Vanda orchids, submerged in water. It's different, but it's not Phil. Phil likes to reach out and touch. 

"My boyfriend, I mean," Dan clarifies. He doesn't need to. The woman does not care. She's already looking back down at her phone. There's something exhilarating about being ignored in moments like this. He is no one. He could be anyone. "His name is Phil." 

"That's nice," she says, in a tone that roughly translates to: why are you still talking? 

He grins and turns an aisle. 

* 

Dan leaves the shop with a potted plant tucked under his arm. It's got glossy green leaves that are thick to the touch, and the pot it's in is bright blue. He doesn't have a card and he refuses to enable Phil's sugar addiction by getting him overpriced chocolates, but a stop off at Starbucks on their block and he'll be set.

He hums to himself as he walks back toward home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to rizzo for beta reading! Find me on tumblr and twitter @ alittledizzy. :)


End file.
